Mardi: and A Voyage Thither Volume II Part 49

BABBALANJA--In ten days, Lombardo had written full fifty folios; he loved huge acres of vellum whereon to expatiate.

MEDIA--What then?

BABBALANJA--He read them over attentively; made a neat package of the whole: and put it into the fire.

ALL--How?

MEDIA--What! these great geniuses writing trash?

ABRAZZA--I thought as much.

BABBALANJA--My lords, they abound in it! more than any other men in Mardi. Genius is full of trash. But genius essays its best to keep it to itself; and giving away its ore, retains the earth; whence, the too frequent wisdom of its works, and folly of its life.

ABRAZZA--Then genius is not inspired, after all. How they must slave in their mines! I weep to think of it.

BABBALANJA--My lord, all men are inspired; fools are inspired; your highness is inspired; for the essence of all ideas is infused. Of ourselves, and in ourselves, we originate nothing. When Lombardo set about his work, he knew not what it would become. He did not build himself in with plans; he wrote right on; and so doing, got deeper and deeper into himself; and like a resolute traveler, plunging through baffling woods, at last was rewarded for his toils. "In good time,"

saith he, in his autobiography, "I came out into a serene, sunny, ravis.h.i.+ng region; full of sweet scents, singing birds, wild plaints, roguish laughs, prophetic voices. "Here we are at last, then," he cried; "I have created the creative." And now the whole boundless landscape stretched away. Lombardo panted; the sweat was on his brow; he off mantle; braced himself; sat within view of the ocean; his face to a cool rus.h.i.+ng breeze; placed flowers before him; and gave himself plenty of room. On one side was his ream of vellum--

ABBRAZZA--And on the other, a brimmed beaker.

BABBALANJA--No, your Highness; though he loved it, no wine for Lombardo while actually at work.

MOHI--Indeed? Why, I ever thought that it was to the superior quality of Lombardo's punches, that Mardi was indebted for that abounding humor of his.

BABBALANJA--Not so; he had another way of keeping himself well braced.

YOOMY--Quick! tell us the secret.

BABBALANJA--He never wrote by rush-light. His lamp swung in heaven.-- He rose from his East, with the sun; he wrote when all nature was alive.

MOHI--Doubtless, then, he always wrote with a grin; and none laughed louder at his quips, than Lombardo himself.

BABBALANJA--Hear you laughter at the birth of a man child, old man?

The babe may have many dimples; not so, the parent. Lombardo was a hermit to behold.

MEDIA--What! did Lombardo laugh with a long face?

BABBALANJA--His merriment was not always merriment to him, your Highness. For the most part, his meaning kept him serious. Then he was so intensely riveted to his work, he could not pause to laugh.

MOHI--My word for it; but he had a sly one, now and then.

BABBALANJA--For the nonce, he was not his own master: a mere amanuensis writing by dictation.

YOOMY--Inspiration, that!

BABBALANJA.--Call it as you will, Yoomy, it was a sort of sleep- walking of the mind. Lombardo never threw down his pen: it dropped from him; and then, he sat disenchanted: rubbing his eyes; staring; and feeling faint--sometimes, almost unto death.

MEDIA--But pray, Babbalanja, tell us how he made acquaintance with some of those rare worthies, he introduces us to, in his Koztanza.

BABBALANJA--He first met them in his reveries; they were walking about in him, sour and moody: and for a long time, were shy of his advances; but still importuned, they at last grew ashamed of their reserve; stepped forward; and gave him their hands. After that, they were frank and friendly. Lombardo set places for them at his board; when he died, he left them something in his will.

MEDIA--What! those imaginary beings?

ABRAZZA--Wondrous witty! infernal fine!

MEDIA--But, Babbalanja; after all, the Koztanza found no favor in the eyes of some Mardians.

ABRAZZA--Ay: the arch-critics Verbi and Batho denounced it.

BABBALANJA--Yes: on good authority, Verbi is said to have detected a superfluous comma; and Batho declared that, with the materials he could have constructed a far better world than Lombardo's. But, didst ever hear of his laying his axis?

ABRAZZA--But the unities; Babbalanja, the unities! they are wholly wanting in the Koztanza.

BABBALANJA--Your Highness; upon that point, Lombardo was frank. Saith he, in his autobiography: "For some time, I endeavored to keep in the good graces of those nymphs; but I found them so captious, and exacting; they threw me into such a violent pa.s.sion with their fault- findings; that, at last, I renounced them."

ABRAZZA--Very ras.h.!.+

BABBALANJA--No, your Highness; for though Lombardo abandoned all monitors from without; he retained one autocrat within--his crowned and sceptered instinct. And what, if he pulled down one gross world, and ransacked the etherial spheres, to build up something of his own--a composite:--what then? matter and mind, though matching not, are mates; and sundered oft, in his Koztanza they unite:--the airy waist, embraced by stalwart arms.

MEDIA--Incoherent again! I thought we were to have no more of this!

BABBALANJA--My lord Media, there are things infinite in the finite; and dualities in unities. Our eyes are pleased with the redness of the rose, but another sense lives upon its fragrance. Its redness you must approach, to view: its invisible fragrance pervades the field. So, with the Koztanza. Its mere beauty is restricted to its form: its expanding soul, past Mardi does embalm. Modak is Modako; but fogle- foggle is not fugle-fi.

MEDIA (_to Abrazza_)--My lord, you start again; but 'tis only another phase of Azzageeddi; sometimes he's quite mad. But all this you must needs overlook.

ABRAZZA--I will, my dear prince; what one can not see through, one must needs look over, as you say.

YOOMY--But trust me, your Highness, some of those strange things fall far too melodiously upon the ear, to be wholly deficient in meaning.

ABRAZZA--Your gentle minstrel, _this_ must be, my lord. But Babbalanja, the Koztanza lacks cohesion; it is wild, unconnected, all episode.

BABBALANJA--And so is Mardi itself:--nothing but episodes; valleys and hills; rivers, digressing from plains; vines, roving all over; boulders and diamonds; flowers and thistles; forests and thickets; and, here and there, fens and moors. And so, the world in the Koztanza.

ABRAZZA--Ay, plenty of dead-desert chapters there; horrible sands to wade through.

MEDIA--Now, Babbalanja, away with your tropes; and tell us of the work, directly it was done. What did Lombardo then? Did he show it to any one for an opinion?

BABBALANJA--Yes, to Zenzori; who asked him where he picked up so much trash; to Hanto, who bade him not be cast down, it was pretty good; to Lucree, who desired to know how much he was going to get for it; to Roddi, who offered a suggestion.

MEDIA--And what was that?

BABBALANJA--That he had best make a f.a.ggot of the whole; and try again.

ABRAZZA--Very encouraging.

MEDIA--Any one else?

BABBALANJA--To Pollo; who, conscious his opinion was sought, was thereby puffed up; and marking the faltering of Lombardo's voice, when the ma.n.u.script was handed him, straightway concluded, that the man who stood thus trembling at the bar, must needs be inferior to the judge.